


At Least Once More (the "No, Seriously, How Many Times?" remix)

by lady_ragnell



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Golden Age, Multi, POV Outsider, Polyamory, Servants, Team Gluttony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-21 10:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2464559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/pseuds/lady_ragnell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sefa didn't think when she heard about the orgies that Camelot's rulers and its knights partake in that the rumors would be <i>true</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At Least Once More (the "No, Seriously, How Many Times?" remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sophinisba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophinisba/gifts).
  * Inspired by [No, Seriously, How Many Times?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/463198) by [sophinisba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophinisba/pseuds/sophinisba). 



> **Sophie** , you had so many awesome fics it was nearly impossible to decide which one to do! I really liked this one, though, and I thought it would be fun to see what someone outside the relationship, even an outsider to Camelot, might think of everything going on.
> 
> **Warning:** one brief mention of sex-related injury which the POV character assumes the worst, and a few mentions of physical orgy aftermath

Sefa doesn't understand it, at first.

She thinks it's all rumors and whispers until the morning after Mabon, when she's only been in Queen Guinevere's service for a week and she comes in the morning to find her smiling and serene, but moving gingerly, hoarse and tired. Sefa pauses at the door. “Are you well, your Majesty?”

Queen Guinevere's smile is gentle, and she never looks at Sefa like she always thought ladies are supposed to, like her father always said she would, like Sefa is less than her. Instead, she greets her like she's greeting a friend. “I'm very well, Sefa. I'm always tired the morning after a feast.”

And it's only rumors and whispers, Sefa is sure of that (what king would allow his wife to take other men?), but Sefa was dismissed almost as soon as the sun went down. “If there's any way I can help you, your Majesty, I'm more than willing.”

“I am well, Sefa, I promise you that.” The smile she's lapsed into is more private, and Sefa wonders for the first time if it's true, that the king and queen of Camelot, already the bright center of the kingdom, take their knights to bed sometimes, when the time is right.

“Let me know if you ever need me for … anything,” she says, and hopes it doesn't sound presumptuous, or strange.

Guinevere stands up, moving slowly, perhaps stiff, but she's still smiling. “Perhaps a bath, then, Sefa? Arthur and I have audiences in the afternoon, and he's busy with training this morning, so I have time for a nice long one.”

Sefa bobs a curtsy, glad for something to do, and leaves the breakfast tray before she scurries off to tell the kitchens to send up water for the queen.

She runs into Merlin in the hallway outside, just as tired as the queen but with a kind smile for her while he struggles with the king's laundry (Sefa will never quite understand why the most powerful wizard in Albion still brings King Arthur's laundry and bathwater and meals, even after the announcement of what he truly is, but she never knows quite what to do, beyond smile at him and thank him when he gives her tips to help her find her way around the palace). “Did you have a good Mabon?” he asks.

“Yes. I didn't expect to have the evening off. Did the king dismiss you as well?”

Merlin laughs. “For my sins, I don't really get those nights off.” For a second, he goes distant, and most of the time Sefa has to remind herself that he's more powerful even than the king, but every once in a while, the tilt of his head or the look in his eyes will make the back of her neck prickle. “But I don't mind it.”

Sefa almost lets herself ask, but she's not sure Merlin would answer, or what his answer would be, and they aren't really friends, yet. “That's good,” she says, and knows she blurts it out too fast. “I'm going to go get the queen's bathwater.”

“I'll just drop these off, then,” says Merlin, giving her a nod, and opens the door with a whispered word while Sefa trots down the hallway to make sure that Queen Guinevere can have her bath.

*

A few weeks after Mabon, Sefa learns it for sure, bringing the king and queen their breakfast early, since they're riding out in the morning. She's almost to the door when she sees a man leaving the room, and a moment later, when she's about to scream, she recognizes Sir Gwaine—he's a flirt, but a kind one (the king's earliest knights, the most truly loyal, they're always kind, she's learned). When he sees her, or hears her sharp intake of breath, he smiles at her. “Probably best not to wake them for a while,” he says, as cheerful as if it's normal to be walking out of the king and queen's bedroom before dawn with mussed hair and shirt laces undone.

“I beg your pardon,” Sefa chokes out, and even she's not sure if she's apologizing for finding him like this or asking what he's doing there.

Sir Gwaine, however, seems to know, judging by the way he laughs. “Sorry for startling you, I didn't know you'd be here this early. I'd be careful about waking their Majesties up before dawn, Sefa, they like having their private time, even when they have to be up.”

Her cheeks must be flaming, and she doesn't understand, but Sefa can't do anything but retreat, in the face of that, so she bobs a curtsy and makes sure she goes in the opposite direction from Sir Gwaine, stopping in an unused room to wait while the breakfast she's meant to be bringing grows cold. She thinks they would rather a cold breakfast than an interruption.

*

Sefa takes care to dally in the mornings, and the king, when he's still there when she arrives, will sometimes laugh with Queen Guinevere, say the two of them are doomed to servants who can't get up in the mornings. Every time, she wants to apologize, but they seem a little relieved, as well, and Sefa is happy not to run into anyone else leaving their room.

The morning after Samhain, Sefa comes in the morning to find Queen Guinevere tired again, a bruise appearing from the sleeve of her nightgown when it slides up. It's the bruise that makes Sefa speak out even though she isn't sure she'll receive an answer. “Your Majesty, are you well?”

“Sefa, I'm very well.” She must know that it doesn't comfort Sefa, because she pauses in eating her breakfast, takes Sefa's hands and looks in her eyes. “Sir Percival was a little rougher than he meant to be last night, but he apologized, and it was all part of the moment. Do you understand?”

Sefa does. She'd known before, she'd guessed and wondered, but it's confirmation, and it's a sign that the queen trusts her, because if it's a rumor and not a fact, they must not tell many servants. Or, well, servants besides Merlin, who isn't really a servant at all. “I understand,” she says, and knows she must be blushing like the country girl she is. The king and queen love each other, any fool can see the warmth and affection between them, and it's hard to connect that with the sordid stories, but Queen Guinevere would do nothing bad, and the king wouldn't ask her to. There must be something Sefa is missing.

“I'm glad,” says Queen Guinevere.

Sefa curtsies. “Shall I run you a bath, your Majesty?”

Her smile is warm, and soft, and full of understanding that only makes Sefa blush more. “Of course, Sefa. And I think—you might call me Gwen. It's not a name I hear enough, these days.”

It's not what she's been trained to do, but the queen—Gwen—has asked it of her, and Sefa is discovering that she would do a great deal to make Gwen happy. “I'll begin preparing your bath, Gwen,” she says, and leaves.

*

Sefa watches, after that. She doesn't spy, doesn't arrive earlier in the mornings to catch any more knights leaving the royal bedchambers even if she wonders how often it happens when it isn't a feast day, but when she's waiting on Gwen during audiences, she keeps her eyes on the knights, and the same at feasts, or when there are visitors.

What she learns (and it's no surprise) is that everyone loves the king and queen, but especially the knights. Each of them, each one who has earned his place at the Round Table, looks on them with not just loyalty or friendship but a special kind of warmth as well, one that radiates out between all of them but is especially focused on King Arthur and Gwen. Sefa doesn't think they're all _in_ love with them, she's from the country but she's not an innocent, and the gossip about Sir Gwaine and Sir Elyan is a little freer than the gossip about what happens on the Round Table the nights of holy days. They do love each other, though, in a steady, fierce way that has made Camelot into Albion.

She watches Merlin, too. He isn't a knight, though she doesn't know why when he can defend himself better than anyone, but he's part of their circle. He loves Gwen and King Arthur as well, and he's so familiar with both of them. Sometimes, Sefa will come into the royal chambers in an afternoon and find Merlin there, laughing with the king over something, or arguing with the exact same amount of affection. Sometimes, she'll come in and find he and Gwen bent over papers on the table. Once, all three of them were there, and glad to welcome Sefa so she could do her chores, and she looked up once to find Merlin lifting something absently with magic to look at it better, and Gwen and King Arthur looking at him with so much wonder and sadness in their eyes that she suddenly felt as though she was intruding.

Now that she's watching, she comes to recognize the nights when there are more than two people in the king and queen's bed. She's rarely dismissed early on those nights (the knights and Merlin are all too discreet to come while she might still be there), but there's a certain feeling in the air. King Arthur will often come home earlier than usual, and sit at his table while Gwen concludes her business or talks to Sefa or lets Sefa get her into a nightgown.

Some nights, she knows it's happening because Merlin comes in the evening to help her with her chores, and when he asks her if she'd like him to walk her back to her room he sounds a little bit reluctant, even though Merlin is kinder to her than anyone but Gwen. She always makes sure to smile extra bright at him on those nights while she tells him it's fine, she knows the palace well enough to find her room in her sleep these days.

It seems to her that it's Merlin more often than it is anyone else, but she doesn't ask. Gwen has entrusted her with so much already, Sefa can't bring herself to ask for any more confidences.

*

Autumn turns to winter and Sefa doesn't think of it often, not really, not nearly as often as she thought she would. If Gwen and the king want another in their bed some nights, to make it warmer, or to make it better, that's their own business, and now that Sefa knows the truth of the rumors, she finds herself scolding the other maids when they gossip about it in the kitchens, wonder which of the knights the queen favors and which of them the king does.

It's about sex, of course it's about sex, especially on the nights when it's just one extra man in their chambers to keep them warm, but it's about Camelot too, and Albion, and just how much the people of both love their king and queen.

“Doesn't it ever bother you, the way people gossip?” Sefa finally asks Gwen one afternoon when she's mending a tear in one of her gowns and Gwen is reading over some papers, massaging her temples.

“People would gossip about Arthur and me no matter what,” Gwen says, always so gentle. “They gossip about whoever is interesting, and what we have, what the Round Table is, it's unprecedented. Does it bother you?”

That's a bigger question than it seems, and both of them know it. “It bothers me that they talk about it like it's something sordid. It's not just that, it's not that at all.”

Gwen looks at her, perhaps a little surprised. “I suppose it's not.”

*

Winter settles in long and cold, and Sefa sees Merlin more evenings than not, now. If Gwen and King Arthur have anyone else in their bed, they're even more discreet about it than usual, and she doesn't know when they have the time. When she comes in in the mornings, she notes how they are under the covers. The two of them have always been inclined to sprawl a little from what she's seen, but as the winter passes, she finds Gwen pressed close to the king's side more often than not, space enough for someone else in their bed.

Sefa likes mornings, the time before the palace is buzzing with too much activity, and she takes the long mornings she gets and uses them to do laundry, to do whatever the queen needs done outside of her chambers. On one of those mornings, a short time after the Solstice, she meets Merlin, obviously on his way back from the royal chambers, later than he usually is.

He stops short when he sees her, rubbing his hands together against the cold even though she knows he can make fire in an instant. “Sefa.”

They're far enough away from Gwen and King Arthur that he could be out for another reason, and she wants to smile at how guilty he looks, because she might never have guessed if she didn't already know. “You're later than usual,” she says, because she's coming to find the value in honesty, here in Camelot where everything seems to be secrets no matter how much the king and queen fight against that.

“I'm not—I was—it was cold,” he says, giving up on lying halfway through and shrugging. “I didn't want to get out of bed.”

“I could bring breakfast for three.”

“They have things to do, in the mornings. I don't want to interrupt.”

“I don't think you could ever interrupt them,” says Sefa, and knows it's true. Gwen and Arthur will stop doing anything, if Merlin has something to say, if he comes into the room. They love all their knights, all their people, but Merlin is something else to them. She's just not sure if any of them have thought that far, and what they could do about it, in that case.

“They're married. It's different. Gwen may like it when there's someone else there, but I don't want to overstay my welcome.”

“Tell me when to bring breakfast for all three of you.” It's as much as she dares to argue, and it leaves Merlin with flaming cheeks, though some of that may be the chill. “I should go and bring them their breakfast, then?”

“Yes, they were awake when I left.” He looks awkward, and she wonders what it would have been like, if she'd had the chance to know him when he was a servant and not the Court Sorcerer. They might have been real friends, but then again, they're close to it now. “I'm sure I'll see you in audiences this afternoon,” he finally says.

“Breaking the ice on the queen's cup, no doubt,” she agrees with a sigh. She isn't going to push.

Merlin smiles at her. “I'll try and keep it warmer in there. Arthur says it's a frivolous use of magic, but then he complains that his mail will give Gwen frostbite if she touches it, so I don't think he'll mind.”

Sefa smiles, and bobs a curtsy that makes him roll his eyes, and continues down the corridor.

*

The winter turns to slush and mud and Sefa finds Gwen and Arthur watching Merlin more closely when they're with him, touching his shoulders and his face. They aren't public about it (Camelot still has its reputation), but it's a change. Merlin is truly singled out from their knights now, and Sefa doesn't know the last time she recognized that they'd been with someone and had even the chance of a thought that it wasn't Merlin. Holy days haven't changed, but holy days are always special. Merlin has become part of them, belonging to them, as easily as they belong to each other. Gwen, and perhaps King Arthur, may even know it.

Sometimes it's a little lonesome, watching the three of them so warm together, but Sefa doesn't mind it. They fit together perfectly, and she can't begin to envy them their happiness when it only seems to seep out into the rest of Camelot.

“You should ask him to stay,” she blurts one morning, making the bed when she arrived to find Gwen and Arthur close together in the bed with a clear imprint of a third body in the covers.

Gwen, caught staring out the window at the knights' training field, where they're all slipping and sliding in the mud like so many puppies, starts a little and then smiles at her. “Why do you say that?”

“You love all your knights, but that's different from having a lover, I think. And Merlin is that.”

“Yes,” says Gwen, eyes crinkling at the corners, pleased. “Yes, he is. And I do want him to stay. _We_ do. Perhaps it's time to ask, though.”

“I don't mean to be presumptuous—”

“You aren't, Sefa. We've been talking about it, and it's time. We know that.”

“You can always tell me to bring breakfast for three, your Majesty.”

Gwen laughs. “So I can. Perhaps the next time he stays the night, you could bring a little extra.”

Sefa smiles to herself and goes back to smoothing the coverlet on the bed, the winter furs still there and musty with the long season. “I'll be sure to do that.”

*

Sefa brings extra bread and cheese one morning, three mornings, six, over the next fortnight, and she expects Gwen and Arthur to look disappointed when they're unnecessary, but they never do. They're smiling together like they have a secret, and Merlin doesn't look quite the same, thoughtful more than anything, but he doesn't look unhappy either.

It's a chilly early spring morning when Sefa knocks on the door to their bedchamber and walks in to find all three of them sleeping there, Merlin startling awake as the door closes behind her. He and Arthur are on either side of Gwen, holding her, all of them sleep-mussed, and Merlin is just as happy as he is embarrassed, from his expression.

“I brought you breakfast,” she says, and makes a point of saying it to him, nodding at the three cups on the tray.

“She's a much better servant than you ever were,” Arthur says in a low rumble, teasing even as he comes out of sleep.

“Thank you, Sefa,” says Gwen, and there's all the joy and warmth of Camelot in her smile when she sits up, clutching the furs to her chest.

Sefa smiles again, and curtsies to all three of them. “I'll come back in an hour,” she promises, and leaves them to enjoy the morning on their own.

*

“Beltane is coming up,” says Merlin a few weeks later, catching her at her afternoon chores as he wanders into the chambers that they're all pretending don't belong to him as well now.

“Yes, and?”

He grins at her and squeezes her shoulder. “You don't have to be dismissed early if you don't want to be, you know.”


End file.
